Of Airports and Letters
by JeSuisUnePomme
Summary: [One Shot] [GerIta] Request prompt from Tumblr. "You certainly developed a... familiar relationship with Feliciano while I was away," Ludwig said and Kiku paused and looked back over his shoulder, his smirk doubling in size. "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?" Ludwig scoffed and took up his luggage, not caring to see his expression melt into one of unabashed amusement...


**AN:** An anonymous request prompt from my Tumblr account! (find me on Tumblr! Username: **une-pomm3** ). The prompt was "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?"

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Ludwig stepped into the airport terminal and sighed heavily, stretching out the coiled muscles in his shoulders as he slung his satchel over one of his tired shoulders. He scanned the room, eyes falling on Kiku Honda who was waiting for him against one of the walls; the Japanese man smiled and gave a shallow bow as Ludwig approached him.

"Beilschmidt," he said, "welcome back."

"Thank you, Honda, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to pick me up." They began to walk together, side-by-side, pausing for a few silent minutes to pick up Ludwig's small suitcase from a luggage carousel. "Where is Feliciano?"

Kiku regarded Ludwig with an amused expression as the German snapped the handle of his suitcase up and began wheeling it away, the tops of his ears reddening with the casual use of the Italian's first name.

Their working relationship, and subsequent friendship, while pleasant, did not often require the use of such familiarity, and Ludwig felt the heat rise in his face at the slip of the name. The three did their best to retain a formal attitude about their group, which did not always work when the bubbly Italian was involved.

"He apologized for not being the one to come, something came up. But, ah, he told me to give this to you." Ludwig paused and turned to Kiku, eyebrow raised in a high arch. Kiku rummaged around in his suit pockets briefly, producing a wrinkled envelope decorated in shiny stickers. Ludwig felt his blush deepen as Kiku handed it to him, "he instructed me very clearly to tell you to read _all_ of it," he smiled, an annoyingly knowing smile that Ludwig returned with a scowl.

"What is it?" Kiku only shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head to one side and Ludwig felt he had no option but to tear into the envelop right there in the middle of the airport terminal.

Goddamn rose petals fell out when he pulled a letter from the inside. His nose was assaulted by the sweet floral scent and flicked his eyes briefly back to Kiku to see the small smirk playing on his polite mouth.

" _Dearest Luddy_ ," the letter began and Ludwig groaned.

"Do I have to read this right now?" He moved to stuff the letter back into its envelope but Kiku shook his head, reaching out a hand to stop him.

"He was quite insistent. Come, read and walk, a car is waiting out front."

Ludwig opened the letter again, keeping one eye on Kiku's back as he followed him through the airport, the other skimming over the letter.

It started off innocent enough, wondering if Ludwig had a good trip, if the weather had been nice, and if the flight was comfortable – which was all ridiculous, he could have waited until they saw each other in person to ask such frivolous questions.

Then the letter launched into a very detailed description of events that took place while Ludwig had been away on business.

" _It got so very lonely without you yelling at me to get back to work all day long,_ " Feliciano wrote in his curling script, " _I am glad Honda stayed behind!_ " He accounted how much personal time they ended up spending together and what they did. They went out for dinner to fancy restaurants, they went for walks in the park (" _I have to admit, Luddy, without you here we didn't get much work accomplished!_ " Ludwig could practically hear the giggle in the words). Feliciano recounted in detail how, one afternoon, he had invited Kiku to his home and they spent the day cooking an elaborate meal together in his kitchen before having a siesta in his back garden.

"You certainly developed a... _familiar_ relationship with Feliciano while I was away." Kiku paused and looked back over his shoulder, his smirk doubling in size.

"Yes, it was an enjoyable holiday," Ludwig glowered. It wasn't a _holiday_ , he just happened to have been away for two weeks, unable to keep his business partners in line from overseas.

"It was hardly a holiday, Honda, I still expected you two to _work_ in my absence. I can't run this damn company by myself."

"We did what was needed while you were away. Did you finish the letter?"

"I'm not sure I want to read it right now," to show how serious he was about directly disobeying the Italian's instructions, he stuffed the letter back into the envelope and slid it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Kiku raised an eyebrow, his smile sliding into a frown.

"He really was insistent than you read the whole thing before – wait a minute, are you _jealous_?" Ludwig scoffed and took up his luggage, wheeling it past the Japanese man, not caring to see his expression melt into one of unabashed amusement, a look that was not entirely becoming on his normally passive face.

Ludwig did not get the opportunity to respond with more than a darkened scowl thrown over his shoulder before there was a resounding, " _Luddy_!" screeched at full volume and a blur of a blue suit, sun-kissed skin, and auburn hair throwing itself at him from the double glass doors that lead to the curb where a line of taxis waited for customers.

"Dammit, Vargas," Ludwig was careful to keep the familiarity out of his words, "control yourself!" Feliciano only laughed as he wrapped his arms around Ludwig's neck, nuzzling his face into his collarbone. Ludwig felt the blush in his cheese rise to an impossible temperature and he nervously scanned the surrounding crowds for any disapproving faces; there were none, save for Kiku hiding a laugh behind one of his delicate hands. Asshole. Ludwig tried to pry Feliciano off him, but the Italian only picked up his feet from the floor, hanging off of him like a child on a jungle-gym. He gave up his struggle with a sigh, letting his arms fall limp at his sides and staring up at the ceiling while Feliciano laughed and hugged him tighter.

"I missed you! Did you read my letter?"

"He did not finish it, I am afraid," Kiku approached, bending to collect Ludwig's luggage which had toppled over in the excitement. Feliciano frowned and detached himself from Ludwig, taking a step back.

"Is that true?" He asked, his eyes wide and innocent and Ludwig couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt ricochet through his chest and he fumbled for an apology. Kiku politely excused himself, exiting the airport with Ludwig's luggage in tow. "Why did you not finish my letter, Ludwig?" The pang in his chest doubled in strength and Ludwig tore his eyes away from Kiku's back, forcing himself to meet Feliciano's.

"Oh, well, I just... wasn't in the mood," he sighed, "it was a long flight, Feli- _Vargas_. I'm too tired to be playing games right now. I will read it later."

"No!" Feliciano grabbed his wrists and stepped closer, his eyes wide and pleading, "no, you have to finish it now! How far did you get?" He suddenly disregarded Ludwig's personal space entirely (not unusual) and began searching through all of his pockets until he finally found the letter, ripping it out of the envelop and holding it up so both of them could see the words. He pointed to the page, "where did you leave off, here? Or here?"

"Somewhere around there," Ludwig mumbled and made to pull away and follow Kiku from the airport, but Feliciano's hand on his wrist was like a vice, holding him from escaping further than half a step.

"You've missed all the important bits! Ludwig!" Feliciano tugged on his sleeve until Ludwig relented with a heavy sigh, reclosing the space between them and leaning over to squint at the letter in Feliciano's shaking hand. "Right here, see?" Ludwig took the letter and brushed Feliciano's hand from his wrist, which he finally released, and refocused on the curly scrawl on the page.

". _..while I've had a lot of fun,_ " it read, " _it made me realize something very important. I like Kiku a lot, but I like you better. I wish you had been here, that I had done all of these things with you because -_ " Ludwig paused and raised his eyebrows at Feliciano, whose face had gone decidedly red and his eyes were flitting about, not staying focused on one thing for longer than a millisecond; he was _nervous_. He turned back to the letter, " _because I love_ you-" he couldn't read past that, a strangled noise coming up from somewhere in the back of his throat.

"Oh, well, you got to the most important bit, so I suppose that's enough. The rest is just dribble, really. Actually, on second thought, you don't need to read anymore," Feliciano reached for the letter, his face an unhealthy shade of red, his bottom lip caught between nervous teeth. Ludwig held the letter high over his head.

"No, I," he cleared his throat, "no, I want to read all of it," this just wasn't the right setting, he realized, staring down at his young Italian business partner as he hopped, trying desperately to snatch the letter held above him and out of his reach. "Feliciano," the smaller man paused, his eyes finally meeting Ludwig's as he stilled, lowering his hand to fret at the collar of his coat. "I _want_ to read it," he repeated, desperately hoping his expression wasn't too solemn, that he was conveying his sincerity. Feliciano did not flee, so he assumed he wasn't looking too frightening, in fact, his face slowly broke through the clouds of nerves and into a sunny smile.

"Oh, that's a relief. Kiku told me you'd want to hear about _that_ , but I wasn't sure it was a good idea to tell you, but he said I should so that's why I wrote the letter. I'm fairly certain I nearly killed him with my, as he said, 'incessant chatter about the stoic German,'" Feliciano lowered his voice to mimic Kiku's, "he actually _swore_ at me, Luddy, it was hilarious!" He continued to prattle on about how Kiku had convinced him to put his feelings into words, but Ludwig wasn't really listening, he was too busy being lost in his own flood of tangled emotions. He'd need to sort them out, but first, he silenced Feliciano with a kiss.


End file.
